I've written here about my mother, her good energy, her excellent health and her strong drive to continue living despite the fact that her body was wearing out. Although we all thought she'd live to be a hundred, her time finally came this June. Our beloved Mother passed from this life with grace and courage on June 14th with her dear daughter Sandy beside her. She had lived a long and productive life and almost made it to her 98th birthday this November. She had experienced several medical setbacks during the preceding year that left her weak and barely able to walk. Most of our immediate family came to Buffalo for a visit in May and she enjoyed those gatherings, especially because my daughter Carin and her family were there from North Carolina, and also her grandson Tuli, whom she hadn't seen for years, and his son Harper, from Oregon. I had encouraged this meeting in Buffalo because I believed she was failing and that this might be their last chance to see her — and so it was.
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| Family photo, four generations — May 27, 2014 |
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| Mom with grandchildren Tuli & Carin and their children, Harper & Kaiyah |
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Not long after these photographs were taken, mom fell and fractured her wrist. She was in considerable pain afterward and couldn't endure using her walker — she was forced into a wheelchair until her bones could heal. Her knees were already worn out by arthritis and old age. Even before her fall she could barely walk without assistance, which is something she always did with a passion. And her eyes were bad. She loved reading but macular degeneration had long been eating away at her vision. She used a TV camera, the Video Eye, connected to a huge TV to help her read for years. She never complained about any of this. She merely accepted the hand she was dealt and soldiered on with a smile on her face. But now, even the faithful Video Eye was failing her. She could no longer see well enough to read.
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| Cutting out coupons using the Video Eye (1995) |
Sandy and I talked frequently by phone over the next couple of weeks until one day when she told me I might want to start looking around for a flight back to Buffalo. Mom, she said, had told her she didn't care if she ever got out of bed again. The pain in her knees was too great. And she wasn't interested in food or eating. I tried talking with her on the phone. I asked how she was doing, but she couldn't hear me well. Her last words to me were, Nothing's any good anymore, David.
Just as I began making arrangements to return to Buffalo, Sandy called back to tell me our mother was gone.
Mom never wanted to be a burden on anyone. Even now, in perhaps her last conscious act, she had somehow managed to leave this life without inconveniencing any of us further. Especially me, the one who left home at age 19 and never looked back. I was glad to be out of Buffalo and made no bones about it. I signed myself "Your wayward son" in my letters home during my early years in Alaska. By most standards I reckon I wasn't a very good son to her because I haven't been around much since college but if she ever had any thoughts along those lines she never mentioned them to anybody. That's just the way she was.
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| Mom at home in 2008 |
The large family in which I grew up shrinks every year. My aunt Marion, my father's only sibling, is the last one left alive of my mother's generation and she's 95 and increasingly frail. All mom's sisters and brothers, the aunts and uncles of my childhood, some older cousins, even our neighbors from Lackawanna Avenue, are gone now. As I look through our photo albums of all those picnics and parties, Christmases, birthdays and vacations, I notice this one and that one; there's my father with aunt Betty & uncle Bill, and aunt Mart, Gert & Stan and aunt Evvie from across the street, and Phyllis & Jake from "down home" in Allentown. They're all gone. It's at times like this that the weight of my 70 years press most heavily. But this year my brother and nephew, my daughter and sons, my sister, especially my sister, all of us who remain, have suffered an especially traumatic blow, a cataclysmic event. Something's missing from our lives that can never be brought back or ever repaired.
We miss our mom, our grandmother, her indomitable will, her unfailing cheer, her enduring love. She was always a fighter, always a joy to be around, and always a caring mother. We will mourn her passing and celebrate her vibrant spirit for the rest of our days.
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